Ah, the familiar sounds of rustling papers, fast paced walks from meeting to meeting room, and that all too common groan, a mixture of frustration and exhaustion in equal parts, remind me that it is that time of year in the schools. It is “IEP season”.

In honor of the countless hours of reassessment, data collection, and paperwork completion you will be doing over the next few months, I thought I’d write a post to help out those of you who are once again, hitting the keyboards and staring at that blank section on your IEP. You know the one I’m talking about. You spend a lot of time thinking about it only after all the data and classroom observations are compiled. You know it needs to be completed but after writing your student’s present level of performance, his goals and objects and of course his service time, who has the energy left to even think about classroom accommodations and modifications. Well that is where I step in, at least for those of you who have students with hearing loss on your caseloads.

Last year at this time I had a few students with hearing loss managed with both hearing aids and cochlear implant (CI) on my caseload. As a multidisciplinary team, we had to do some research to find appropriate accommodations and modifications for those students. However, I recently read the book Children with Hearing Loss: Developing Listening and Talking Birth to Six, by Elizabeth Cole and Carol Flexer which provided some clinically useful information on the specific deficits a child with hearing loss might have in the classroom setting. I wish I had read this last year while I was struggling with the multidisciplinary team to write an appropriate IEP. But now that I found this information, I thought I would adapt parts of it and compile that information into a table for quick reference in the future.

The accommodations and modifications in the graphic below are suggestions of possibilities you may attempt to provide for your students. This is by no means an exhaustive list nor would every student benefit from each suggestion. Therefore, I recommend you use this list as a guide only while working collaboratively with your multidisciplinary team to determine appropriate accommodations and modifications for each student on an individual basis.

You will notice that the first accommodation for any hearing loss is the use of an FM system alone or in conjunction with auditory management (e.g. hearing aids, cochlear implant, other technology). Research has shown the use of individual FM systems positively impact students with hearing loss of any severity level AND that classroom or sound field FM systems benefit ALL students. One can’t help but wonder how different a student’s behavior would be in a classroom where the speech to noise ratio was in fact the recommended +15-20 dB rather than the typical +4 dB (Cole, Flexer 2007). That is why the recommendation of an FM system is first as it is not only practical but very beneficial even for a child with very mild hearing loss.

Here are the levels of severity, classroom difficulties and possible accommodations and modifications for children with hearing loss.

I hope these materials help guide you and your multidisciplinary team when writing IEPs for your students with hearing loss. Do you have additional modifications or accommodations you would add to this list? Let us know by commenting below.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our second installment of Kid Confidential. If you have any topics you would like us to discuss here, feel free to share. You just might see your topic suggestion in one of the upcoming columns. I’ll meet you back here on the second Thursday of next month.

Maria Del Duca, MS, CCC-SLP, is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in southern, Arizona. She owns a private practice, Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC, and has a speech and language blog under the same name. Maria received her master’s degree from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. She has been practicing as an ASHA certified member since 2003 and is an affiliate of Special Interest Group 16, School-Based Issues. She has experience in various settings such as private practice, hospital and school environments and has practiced speech pathology in NJ, MD, KS and now AZ. Maria has a passion for early childhood, autism spectrum disorders, rare syndromes, and childhood Apraxia of speech. For more information, visit her blogor find her on Facebook.

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About Maria Del Duca

Maria Del Duca, M.S. CCC-SLP, is a pediatric speech-language pathologist in southern, Arizona. She owns a private practice, Communication Station: Speech Therapy, PLLC, and has a speech and language blog under the same name. Maria received her master’s degree from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and has been practicing as an ASHA certified member since 2003. She has experience in various settings such as private practice, hospital and school environments and has practiced speech pathology in NJ, MD, KS and now AZ. Maria has a passion for early childhood, autism spectrum disorders, rare syndromes, and childhood Apraxia of speech.

Comments

Thanks for the post, and I remember when my sister got her first hearing aids for school. And just like any other child who had to wear hearing aids or had to wear glasses. She hated wearing them, because they would always bug her. But now that she’s a lot older, she appreciates them a lot more than she did when she was 6.

Tyler, your comment made me chuckle a little because I think of some of the PK kiddos I’ve worked with who got their hearing aids or cochlear implants during the time I was working with them. You hit the nail right on the head when you said young children do NOT like to wear them. Dislike is probably a kind way of saying it! Ha. But kuddos to your parents for realizing the importance of audiological management! It is sometimes difficult to explain to parents, that although it may be uncomfortable or even annoying for young children to wear their hearing aids or CIs, it is necessary to get the child used to the feeling AND begin to rely on them so their auditory system can receive consistent stimulation. The best advice always comes from persons who wear hearing aids/CIs and their families who can testify to the positive changes it makes in the child’s life. So thank you so much for your comment. I hope it helps parents out there that may be trying to determine the best course of action for their child!

Thank you Brandon for your comment. It is nice to hear from someone who experiences hearing loss to know the accommodations we recommend are on the right track!

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